INDIANAPOLIS – It would have been comical if not so revealing. There they were, American male swimmers preparing for the Rio Olympics, and struggling to stay ahead of someone who had no business beating them.

The lurking shark was Katie Ledecky.

“She was racing the guys in training camp, and they were doing all they could not to lose. It was nuts,” Indiana University breaststroker Lilly King said. “They were the Olympic freestylers. It was crazy.”

An apocryphal story to enhance the legacy of an athlete still only 20?

“It’s real. It’s real,” male sprinter Nathan Adrian assured.

This, too, is real:

Katie Ledecky is one of the world’s greatest active athlete, irrespective of sport or gender. Don’t think so?

Stanford swimmer Katie Ledecky looks at the scoreboard after the A Finals of the Women's 200m Freestyle at George F. Haines International Swim Center.(Photo: Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports)

Swimming is not elitist, considering 20 different countries won medals at Rio.

Ledecky can swim the 100-meter freestyle — she anchored Team USA to a silver medal in the 400 free relay at Rio — and holds world records in the 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles.

Ledecky will demonstrate her extraordinary range on day one of the Phillips 66 National Championships on Tuesday at the Natatorium at IUPUI. She will have prelims of the 100-meter freestyle in the morning, and presumably the final at night before her 800-meter freestyle.

Yeah, she likes beating the boys.

“It gives me a good target, and kind of makes things a little bit easier sometimes, just racing,” Ledecky said. “I don’t really have to focus on my own pacing as much. I can just try to beat the person next to me.

“So I do enjoy having those opportunities. Hopefully, if I make the World Championships team and get to training camp, I can race some of them or push some of them.”

Top two in most events qualify for the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where swim events are July 23-30.

Ledecky is coming off her freshman season at Stanford but already seems like an institution in this sport. She has set 13 world records.

In 2012, she surprisingly won Olympic gold in the 1,500 freestyle. She won five golds at the 2015 worlds — she became the first ever to win 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles at a major championship — and set three world records. She came away from Rio with five Olympic medals, four of them gold, and two more world records.

Her time of 8:04.79 in the 800 freestyle would have been a men’s world record as recently as 1976.

Washington Post reporter Dave Sheinin wrote afterward:

“It was the pinnacle of Ledecky’s swimming career — higher than the 2012 gold medal in London at the age of 15, higher than the gold medal hauls at the 2013 and 2015 world championships — which means it also may have been the pinnacle of any woman’s athletic career in history because none has been more dominant than her.”

King called her an inspiration and role model, acknowledging that it sounds odd because she is five weeks older than Ledecky. King has said, as others have, that Ledecky “looks like a normal human.” Even if she is not.

“I just try to keep my head down, do the work, get up and race,” Ledecky said. “You’ve kind of got to keep it simple when it comes to swimming. I love the sport. I love swimming.”

She delayed college enrollment to train for the Olympics. She said she “enjoys the team culture,” and that it helped her move on from Rio.

She will be confronted with a decision before the next Olympics, in Tokyo, because the 1,500 freestyle has been added. It was “a long time coming,” she said, pointing out how few events there once were for women in Olympic swimming. Now, the 1,500 “will have to be in the conversation” for her 2020 schedule.

World’s greatest active athlete?

It's certainly a conversation worth having.

Call IndyStar reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195 or email him at david.woods@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

USA Championships

What: Phillips 66 National Championships. It is the selection meet for the World Championships, World Junior Championships and World University Games.

When: Tuesday through Saturday (heats at 9 a.m., finals at 6 p.m.)

Where: Natatorium at IUPUI.

Tickets: All-session passes are $100. Single sessions are $10 for adults, $5 for youth.